Singer-Songwriters : 1971: Live At Massey Hall (With DVD)

1971: Live At Massey Hall (With DVD)

CDN$ 18.99

  1. On The Way Home
  2. Tell Me Why
  3. Old Man
  4. Journey Through The Past
  5. Helpless
  6. Love In Mind
  7. A Man Needs A Maid/Heart of Gold Suite
  8. Cowgirl In The Sand
  9. Don t Let It Bring You Down
  10. There s a World
  11. Bad Fog Of Loneliness
  12. The Needle And The Damage Done
  13. Ohio
  14. See The Sky About To Rain
  15. Down By The River
  16. Dance Dance Dance
  17. I Am A Child

I m gonna sing mostly new songs tonight, Neil Young tells the rapt Massey Hall audience, ...I ve written so many new ones that I can t think of anything else to with them other than sing em. He steps to the mic unadorned, distant from CSNY s rippled harmonies or Crazy Horse s yowl, hypnotically nailing 17 tracks on this unreleased 1971 solo set. You hear him tower at vocal heights on the chorus for Old Man (then a debuted, brand-new song) and name-check Canada on Journey to the Past and North Ontario on Helpless, much to the Toronto crowd s delight. The sound is impeccable, and the closeness to Young in this spare setting exhilarates--especially his vocal quavering in the high registers, his intricate guitar work, and an overall vibe that exceeds description. And the DVD: Here you catch Young in tightly framed, starkly-lit shots, flourishing in the early years of an unparalleled rock career. Not only that, you get commentary from 1997, a rare window on how Young thinks, how he speaks, his humor. --Andrew Bartlett

Wow! - To think that someone sat on these tapes all this time. This set made the hair on the back of my head stand up and misted my eyes too. In the era that this concert occurred there were some pretty bad concerts with terrible sound. This set should have been available years ago. It is one of the finest live recordings by any performer, that I have ever seen or heard.

Forever Young - This is the album that should have come out between After The Gold Rush and Harvest, (Neil Young). Harvest was my first NY album, then I discovered the gem ATGR. I prefer his classic albums up to the release of Comes a Time. This is a beautiful set with lovely personable commentary in between songs. It s brilliant to hear such Neil Young classics as Old Man being introduced as new songs. The music sounds as fresh as yesterday and Neil s mastery of the guitar and piano is pure quality. Few can make the instruments sound so perfectly complementary to the voice. This is a completely must-have disc, alongside After The Gold Rush and Harvest. The three disc set Decade is also superb.

Excellent - This is a remarkable recording. It is Neil Young at his best. A couple of the songs are from the Buffalo Springfield era. It is emotional and actually very tender at certain points. It is composed of simple guitar/vocal/piano renditions with some commentary.My favorites here are Old Man and Don t Let It Bring You Down. I found the performances of Helpless and Down By The River to be of lower callibre than usual, but they are an exception, the music on this recording is superb.

Neil s voice & guitar are wonderful, the dvd is disappointing - This cd/dvd has some of the best recordings of Neil s early songs. His voice is pure and moving, and his guitar playing subtle and perfectly in tune with his voice. He was at his best in this concert. The dvd is ok, but with blurry film and half of the performance shots of a reel to reel on a chair facing a mic, you re not much better off just listening to the cd. The moody feel of the video is great for a few songs, but wears thin. Buy this cd for Neil s voice and adept guitar sounds...you can t get much better.

Indispensable for Neil Young s fans - I didn t take very long for Neil to release another excellent archive on his Performance Series after the Filmore East concert. This time it s Neil on his own on piano or guitar. The amazing thing about this release is the sound. It s just great, great sound and feeling. The crowd aknowledges old songs and quickly silences to listen to the music and voice of Young. Neil s singing is at its best and the guitars sound very sharp. Most new songs are from the then forthcoming Harvest and Time Fades Away albums. It s quite a strange feeling not to hear the crowd cheering at the beginning of such hits as Heart of Gold, Old Man or Needle, but that was only 1971. Heart of Gold is actually sandwiched in A Man s Needs a Maid in a piano performance. If I m not mistaken, it s also the first official release of Journey through the Past, Love in Mind and Dance, Dance, Dance on digital.On the dvd, this time, you actually get to see Neil playing, but mostly singing because the camera is often on his face. The image was nicely restored, but the stage was rather dark. The image had probably been lost for 4 or 5 songs since the performance was replaced by a tape reel running on a chair next to guitars! You also get passages where you see Neil on his ranch. The extras are good. There are performances of Harvest songs on another show, radio interviews from 1989, lyrics, newspaper reviews, history, photos, setlists. You also get to see the Old man on Neil s ranch in a short film. Maybe this is not the perfect way to be introduced to Neil Young, but I highly recommend the dvd version to serious fans.




1971: Live At Massey Hall (With DVD)